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Michael Bush
Question
If I was to buy 3 breader Queens and put 1 or 2 drone frames in only one super with a breeder Queen and leave the other 2 to raise queen cells with a jenter system,what kind of sucess would you expect. I generly learn the what not to do first.I would like your ideas.I would like to produce about 200 queens.

I believe Betterbee carried plastic drone foundation / frames last year. You may want to see if they have it again this year.

RE: Drones

If you have a good drone mother, you must use her DAUGHTERS to rear quality drones, since her drones will only carry half of the genetics that both she and her daughters possess. I know this is a tricky concept to learn, but Brother Adam was very specific about this idea. This was how he was able to heavily saturate drone congregation areas from specific lines.

In theory, each of these daughters should produce drones that are clones, provided that the sisters were fertilized by the same drone father.

This way, you have many hives producing identical drones which improve your chances of a proper mate.

&gt;If I was to buy 3 breader Queens and put 1 or 2 drone frames in only one super with a breeder Queen and leave the other 2 to raise queen cells with a jenter system,what kind of sucess would you expect.

That depends on a lot of factors and assumptions. First most people assume putting drone foundation in will result in more drones. The research I've seen would indicate it will make not difference.

Second you are assuming that the three breeder queens are unrelated? They might well be full sisters. Trying to breed one of them to the drones from another of them may not be a good plan anyway unless you intend to do a generation of inbreeding to try to fix some particular traits.

Unless you're doing II (aka AI) then they will be open bred. The mating queens will try to find other drones anyway and that is usually a good thing, unless you're trying to maintain a particular strain of genetics as pure.

Personally I've always heard open mated queens do better than II queens. Breeder queens don't seem like they would be worth the money unless you are doing some kind of II to maintain the genetics or you can do some serious drone flooding and have a mating yard separate from your yard with the breeder queens.

Jim, it is my understanding that drones, being haploid, carry 100% of their mother's genes. So if you had a breeder queens of known pedigree and mating, wouldnt there be some advantage in using her to supply drones of a totally known ancestry? I suppose some of this depends on the type of breeding program and the degree of relatedness of the actual queens that are grafted from. In my particular situation most of my stock are daughters from three differnt breeders from last year and will be used as drone sources, also several beekeepers in my area received queen cells last year and open mated. These will also be utilized as a drone source. Logistically, I will need their drones for several reasons. Firstly, they are located the proper distance away, and secondly, I need more drones than my bees will be able to supply. In my opinion increasing drone production from desirable colonies would be very beneficial. I have 3 mating yards within a 20 mile radius of my home and two of them are near drone congregation areas (at the edge of the radius) that should include drones with desirable genetics from beekeepers who have stock that is partly derived from mine. One yard will hopefully mate in a DCA with high degree of drone saturation from known breeder stock from my bees (at least partially isolated mating yard); or so goes the theory. Could be time for an instrumental insemination set up. Hooray for haplodiploidy!!

When selecting a queen for a breeder, I don't believe you can make a determination just by looking at HER. You need to closely examine her daughters for the characteristics you desire...such as cool weather flights, disease resistance, pollen hording, temper, etc...etc... and so on.

Her daughters are a combination of TWO genetic factors, and not just hers. By rearing drones from the queen's daughters (2nd generation queens), in theory, you should be able to capture those desired genetics.

This begs the question: What about laying workers? Would their drones be equally viable? That's a good question for the experts, I suppose. IF SO, how could we do the un-imaginable and trick workers into supplying badly needed drones?

Laying workers would be a combination of the Queen mothers lineage and the individual drone that fathered the worker. Some people look at laying workers as the last gasp of the hive to continue the genetics of the hive, and this is a probablity.
However; in my experience and observation, I would not want to intentionally use laying workers as a drone source.
1.) Drones from laying workers are raised in worker cells. Craating undersized drones.
2.) Drones from hives with laying workers are typically stressed. The drones would not be fed as norishing a diet and cared for as well as drones raised under healthy queenright conditions.
3.) I would question queens that were mated with such drones. The possiblity of poor mating with poor drones would increase the occurence of supersedure and/or poor queen preformance.

Jim, as to the selection of breeder queens, I agree, and in a thorough program the daughter's daughters and so on, should be assesed. I believe selection is never finished and should be carried on throughout the years. I have 6 to 7 years of selection (multiple generations per season) in most of my breeder lines, some matings done in isolation; some not, regardless, the performance of daughters is the most important factor for me as I love repeat customers and keeping the pressure on to improve overall genetics. As to drones produced from laying workers, this situation usually only would arise if a colony was not able to rear an emergency queen and therefore could be very stressed leading to lower fertility of the surviving drones. I have read that mortality among drones produced from laying workers is very high. I believe drones produced under optimum conditions will yield higher sperm counts, just as queens reared under optimum conditions exhibit better ovary development. Also the genetic variability from drones resulting laying workers has been known to be the cause of the loss of some inbred lines in some breeding programs, according to Laidlaw & Page in Queen rearing and Bee Breeding. Any thoughts?

I thought about getting breeder queen of NWC. From this queen make several queens(as many as splits I can make in time for them to build up) with each of these daughters the next spring making drones(only from the productive ones). Then get another breeder to make queens. I could spread out the daughters, which will still make pure drones since they have no father, around the outer parts of the farm with the breeding nucs in the middle of the farm.

But now that I have the ferals that are living good without treatments for mites and are productive I feel it would just be a waste of money. I may order some NWC and try them and to introduce a few new drones to keep from having an inbreeding problems.

You said --&gt;Jim, it is my understanding that drones, being haploid, carry 100% of their mother's genes. So if you had a breeder queens of known pedigree and mating, wouldnt there be some advantage in using her to supply drones of a totally known ancestry?

Reply --&gt; Actually, you would know their ancestry, but would you know how well that ancestry would work for you? I live in PA, and have purchased southern raised queens, under the impression that they would do everything the breeder claimed, such as wintering, and honey production. Now, since I have raised my own queens, I can tell you first hand, that my queens are superior to those in many areas. Not that my queens are any better, but have open mated with native drones, and the environmental adaptability is far superior. I do bring in a queen or two a year, to broaden the gene pool, but they are northern raised, and the particular breed I want. Sometimes purebred bees do not work as well as mongrol counterparts.
I think anybody interestyed in developing a bee "race" needs to understand the climate, and the available pollens/nector sources in the area. Then you need to build on that idea when selecting the breeds you want to raise. In the north, I almost have to have a fast starter. So, I chose carniolian. I wanted to have a honey crop, so I mixed in some northern Italian. If you read Brother Adams' writings, it is explained in some interesting detail. I am also a firm believer in that feral population adding to the behaviors of the bees, ie climate tolerability, knowing when to hoard and not, ect. Many things play into the big picture if you know what I mean. My plans are to develop a little further with II, either this year or next. I am very happy with what I have achieved, but would like to enhance it a bit. With open mating, true, you can saturate the area, but that does not always mean that you get what you want. I can have what I think is an awesome queen, but with a little age, produces bees that get very nasty! Does it have the charactoristics I planned for? Yes, but the unknown can always be present. I am getting closer though, and will pobably never get it perfect, but it gives me something to do!

I think anybody can raise a queen, but is that queen the one you want?

Here our flow is early then nearly nothing until fall. The ferals know when to raise brood as they are already building up. Mid summer they slow then they build up fast for the fall flow and then enter winter with a small cluster. My heaviest hive had 2 mediums of store left on it last fall. It still had one of them full last week. From what everyone on this site says I gather carnolians act alot like my ferals. The buckfast needed alot more feed to get them through winter.

Dale, I totally agree with your observations and rely on many of the same trends. The longer you have to select and test a line the better, and the better you will be able to make breeding decisions. I really think the best bees for any area would be produced locally. An arguement for everone rearing at least some of there own queens. I am very happy with the nice factor in my bee population, but occasionally an ornery one pops up and gives me a requeening project. I hope I can keep the mean genes at bay over the long run. When you say they "get a little nasty with age", are you refering to the queen's age?

Anyone care to comment on the value of drone comb v. Varoa? I know some people use drone comb to attract the mites, then destroy the mites within the comb. What would the effect of adding drone comb to increase drone population have on the health of the colony from a mite population standpoint?

The studies I've seen on increasing drone comb or decreasing drone comb say it's irelevant to the drone population. The drone population is controled by the bees and in a hive with a healthy queen is a consistent proportion depending on the time of year regardless of the amount of drone comb.

The advantage of using drone combs for a magnet is that you have an entire comb of (hopefully) all drones so you will attract more mites and you don't waste workers when you freeze it.

If your Buckfast are requiring more feed than Carniolans, then you don't have pure Buckfast. The Buckfast typically overwinter with less feed than the Carniolan. I've kept both and have seen this in action numerous times. The biggest single advantage with a pure strain of Buckfast is the reduced swarming. The second biggest advantage is the extreme thrift especially in winter.